A lot of Africans would strongly disagree that France has no "global influence". There are an awful lot of French troops deployed somewhere in Africa right now, and an awful number of African countries still use a French-controlled currency.
They just keep playing the imperialism game in a very old-fashioned way, with little care for modern sensibilities.
I'm not sure it's quite that simple - they've held the Presidency multiple times in this period but as far as I know they've not performed an action like this. There's certainly something going on, but it's not just a hissy fit. As others have mentioned it's only for the duration of the French presidency, it'll probably get switched to English when the Czech presidency begins.
The next Presidential elections are early next year, that's why. Macron wants to look more important/relevant, and a keeper of french values and cultural importance.
Put that way it doesn't sound much like a typical French thing or a hissy fit, but the sort of thing politicians everywhere do. It's dumb and petty and will probably backfire somehow, but there we go.
